The Future
Once upon a time, there was a changeling named Mirage. She was one of Cheval’s clutch-sisters, gifted to Cadence by Amaryllis. When Cadence decided to accept only one grub into the royal household, Mirage was given to a crystal pony family to raise as their own.
Her parents were Quartz Strike and Rose Cut, and they loved her very much. She had two crystal pony sisters named Fire Stone and Heliodor. And when she was a young teenager, she suffered from depression, and spent time with the psychiatrist who would later treat Flurry Heart.
She and her family lived in a two-story house on Idol Lane, six blocks from the palace and two from the library. When Quartz Strike spoke up against the Empire’s persecution of changelings and defended his daughter, the secret police came to that house in the middle of the night. They broke the door down, and a dozen ponies rushed inside.
Mirage escaped. The rest of her family did not.
With Cigar Dream’s help, she fled to Equestria, and thereafter to the Ponyville Hive. She became passing friends with Light, completed her medical training and became a doctor, and was one of the few changelings qualified to treat pony illnesses.
She also adopted two children: an earth pony filly and a unicorn colt. She told them stories about the little two-story house in Idol Lane. She talked about how beautiful it was, about the gardens full of crystal berries, about the flowering trees and the library up the street.
Her son was named Petrograph, and he worked in the Ponyville quarry. There, he met an earth pony mare named Breccia, and they had four children.
One of those children was named Castaway. She was a unicorn and a changeling, and she grew up hearing stories from her grandmother, including the stories about the little two-story house on Idol Lane.
When the time came that the Empire formally abolished its laws forbidding changelings from entering its borders, she booked a ticket on a train leaving Ponyville. Several of her pony friends went with her for safety. The customs guards at the border harassed her, insulted her, and forced her to wear a red band that read: “WARNING, SHAPESHIFTER.”
But she made it through. She walked the streets of the Crystal Empire, and found the little two-story house. It was as beautiful as her grandmother had said, and the crystalline trees outside it grew flowers like diamonds.
It didn’t take long for the pony couple living inside to notice her. Her band was noticeable, and they both eyed it as they walked up to the gate. “Excuse me,” said the mare. “But this isn’t your neighborhood. You’ve got no business here. Leave or I call the police.”
“Actually,” Castaway said, “it is my neighborhood.” Though the bars of the house’s little gate, she floated an envelope.
Inside was a deed, stamped with an Equestrian seal: “You see, that’s my house.”
With the reopening of easy transit to the Empire, tourism increased in both directions. Crystal ponies became a more common sight in Canterlot.
Busy Bee rarely saw them in her restaurant—the sign over the door kept them at bay. But once, she was at a food fair in the nice part of Canterlot and a gaggle of them walked up to her booth.
“Um…” one of them asked, a mare whose exquisite mane and tail served as a functional substitute for a personality. “Hey, you sell, um, bug food. But you’re not like, one of them, right?”
“No, of course not.” Busy Bee giggled. “You don’t think they’d let me set up a booth here if I was, do you? I mean, Canterlot is a civilized, pony city.”
“Oh, good.” The mare smiled, and she and all her friends trotted up. “Because, this smells delicious. What do you recommend?”
“Well, I’ve got a lovely dish here made from ants. Ponies call it firecracker curry, since the ants release little bursts of flavor when you bite down. But the traditional vespid name is,” she struggled to make the right buzz with a pony throat, “{I’m going to pee in your food, bitch}.”
“Ooh, fancy.” The mare gave the booth another sniff. “Can we take three?”
Busy Bee rang them up.
There was once a changeling name Ersatz, who had a chance to kill Flurry Heart, and refused because of a promise she made to a dying stallion. She didn’t survive the war, but her clutch raised a crystal pony named Lucky Sweep. He studied music at Queen Novo’s Conservatory and escaped the fighting.
He never learned to make faces and never thought of himself as a changeling, but he cried when he learned his sisters were dead. Living in exile in Harmonizing Heights, he wrote plays and songs and recorded movies criticizing Flurry’s regime. He called her a tyrant and a murderer and a self-important fool, and he did it in a way that made hippogriffs laugh.
They laughed, and they stayed out of the war. They refused Flurry’s offer of a military alliance. That was the deal.
When free passage into the far north reopened, he returned home for the first time in more than fifty years. Having been a child when the war broke out, he was one of very few creatures left that remembered growing up in the old northern hive. The entire structure had burned, but the stone frame remained.
He stood in an empty room, fresh snow and old ash mingling around his hooves, when he became aware that a creature was watching him. Turning, he saw Cheval, and bowed low to the ground. “Your highness.”
“Don’t let me interrupt,” she said. “You seemed lost in thought.”
“Yes. Um… this was my bedroom, once,” he gestured around the space. “My name is Lucky Sweep. You’re my um… you’re my aunt.”
“It’s good to meet you, Lucky Sweep. Tell me, do you want your old room back?”
He chuckled, rubbing the back of his head with a hoof. “It uh… it might need some cleaning. And a coat of paint.”
But Cheval only smiled and said. “I think we can arrange that.”
Light Step got a statue of herself outside her old dorm.
She’d have been frustrated to know that she did end up being remembered for her art, rather than for starting the Ponyville Hive. Twilight got all the credit for that. She’d have been even more frustrated to know that the students mostly invoked her name during trivia games.
“Okay, okay,” said one stallion. He was sitting on the quad with five friends. Together, they were one earth pony, one unicorn, one pegasus, one crystal pony, one changeling, and one thestral. They joked that they were clearly the friend group from the front of the packets they got on orientation day.
From his deck of cards, he drew another question: “This famous artist once resolved a family dispute by spraypainting an image of Princess Cadence vomiting on the side of a train.”
After a few moments of silence, his thestral friend asked: “Do you mean, like, they spraypainted the picture on the side of a train? Or did they paint her throwing up onto a train?”
“Oh, you want to accuse me of complicity in crimes that happened before I was born?” Diamond Path shouted, “My mother acted without the knowledge of the general staff and her crimes are her own.”
“You expect me to believe,” the reporter demand, “that Flurry Heart ran a government where the heads of her armed forces signed orders without reading them, where the disappearance of millions of citizens went unnoticed, and where no questions were asked when—”
“The changelings were not citizens of the Crystal Empire!” Diamond snarled.
“Then do you deny the thousands of crystal ponies who were lead away for questioning her orders?” The reporter’s hoof hit the desk. “Who were killed for trying to protect their changeling neighbors?”
“That’s it,” Diamond pushed the microphone away. “This interview is over.”
Fifteen years after Cheval’s return, Twilight found five wonderful new friends to keep her company. The new Element of Loyalty was a crystal pony colt, and the new Element of Honesty was one of Cheval’s children. Together, they learned a friendship lesson about overcoming racism.
Twilight had learned that lesson twenty-seven times before, but after consulting all her books and sticky notes, she decided the twenty-eighth time was the best.
And then it was over.
Shrine fillies hung up firefly lanterns and handed little crystal flowers to those who had come to grieve. The sun set and the sky grew dark. Soon, Cadence and Cheval were the only two creatures left in the graveyard.
To their left was Shining Armor’s grave. Ponies still left him flowers or offerings; they still lit candles and left poems in the dirt.
Next to him was Flurry Heart. Her headstone was bare.
“We need to write something,” Cadence eventually said.
“Ponies are going to deface it anyway. Spraypaint it or knock it over” Cheval shrugged. “Put her name. She’s next to dad. That’s all that matters.”
“She deserves more than the name.”
Cheval glanced at her mother, then down to the headstone. Her horn glowed green, and magic etched the stone away.
“FLURRY HEART,” it read, “LOVED BY HER FAMILY”
Then Cadence’s horn glowed, and she added one more line: “SHE DID NOTHING THE WORLD CANNOT HEAL”
“That’s good,” Cheval said. “That’s good.”
She turned into a pony so that she could cry, and when the crying was done, they both left.
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hell of a good story
Huh. It's over now. Cool.
Since my mixed feelings have been articulated by many other people with well written and well liked comments, I'll just say thank you GaPJaxie. This was certainly a series I never thought I would get into and continue to read. I don't know if you have more in store, but thank you for a very interesting series of stories.
9682528
Okay! Let's do this thing.
Sometimes things really are just what they seem!
Nope, that's a typo. Fixed! Along with many others.
We see that in the canonical changeling hive! Thorax takes good advantage.
Radiation poisoning.
Remember that throwaway line? "Gallant once saved Equestria ... there was a communist superweapon in a volcano base and everything. It was a big deal at the time."
That weapon was the Alicorn of Atomic Power, peer to the Alicorn of War and herald of the apocalypse. The communists lost control of her, and Gallant saved the world by imprisoning her at the bottom of a lake.
I was going to write that up as its own side story, but decided not to.
It's an in-character belief, no matter how many times it is shown to be wrong.
The story is intended to be in-universe fiction. Aromantic ponies exist (just like aromantic humans exist), but the changeling gatherer caste didn't always have the best understanding of how ponies worked (just like most changelings didn't). It was one changelings perspective on what being aromantic meant, as well as a reflection on the nature of love.
Thank you!
Did Cheval really call someone a coward?
She is the absolute last person to call someone else that
9682528
Fixed! Along with the others.
PLEASE REMAIN CALM
He's his mother's son. As she put it "not a deeply gifted politician" but stable. There will be no surprises under his rule.
Okay, wow.
I'm sorry, I need to confirm that is not the case, because damn that is clever. I wish I had done that.
He believes in order and stability above all.
Maybe the changelings really are bad, or maybe they aren't. But either way, the Empire is committed. The train can't stop just because one pony says so.
This is an in-character belief! Even if it is super, super wrong.
Yup.
YUP.
It's finally over. And despite all my very complicated feelings about this series of complicated stories that I sometimes failed to grasp, I find my self genuinely sad. Even though this series of stories often made me feel down, or uncomfortable, or genuinely shocked, I always found myself eagerly returning to them and hungry for the next even though I knew it would probably make me uncomfortable or sad.
In the end this was an amazingly compelling series that often challenged my idea of how a story should go and occasionally my moral stance on certain ideologies and was worth every second of it. I don't regret reading it. I'm happy it reached its conclusion. But I'm still sad to see it go.
What a world to be so broken and yet so beautiful.
Well, it's finally over. The entire series is beautifully written and you have a wonderful knack for writing stories that elicit a profound sense of melancholy and left my thoughts a chaotic jumbled mess. You're a bit too good at it, if you ask me.
9683644
How is she a coward? She is a lot of terrible things, but I wouldn't generally call her cowardly.
9683774 You understand that was literally sarcasm? As in, putting in words what Flurry's attitude would be like, right? Throwing in her face that she considered changelings and Equestrians subpar. Sarcasm works that way. She wasn't talking literally, from her own, personal viewpoint about the ponies there.
A very satisfying conclusion. Molto bene.
This story made me angry, sad, emotionally conflicted, as well as happiness joy, and laughter. You, good sir/madam are incredibly tented. I look forward to seeing more of your work in the future.
9683770
Ever since Cheval became a character I've felt that the entire time she's just been running away from any serious problem she has faced. And if she isn't running away she is looking for some convenient excuse to tack on to why she's such a monster.
Didn't the earlier part of the story involve her trying to off herself?
And yet when Flurry tries to play martyr she's being judgmental about it?
Even worse when you look back at the end of A Foreign Education in which Cheval triggered Flurry becoming the monster that she was combined with what we know about alicorns being stuck at that moment in time it all feels like Cheval's fault.
Oh, that was beautiful. I loved how you wrapped up so many individual story arcs and slices of character here - some in ways that simply showed how life marches on, and some much more poignant (and all the more for the former.)
We see Light Step get the recognition she always sought (and the irony that she'd grown so much that she no longer cared for being remembered for her passion.) We see the old regime fall, and Crystal Ponies begin the path to deforming their societal conditioning. We see Twilight... still trapped, but happily, and at least able to make some new moments matter in her endlessly repeating life.
And we see Flurry Heart die, but the world moves on from the marks she left on it - and we see that her family still managed to love her, even though they couldn't forgive. We see that Flurry Heart did make the right choice at the end and strike at everything she created, and we see that Cheval hasn't only found something to live for - she's found a measure of peace. Things aren't fixed, but they can be, and the world has the time to wait for them.
After previous gut punches, I didn't actually think you could pull off a sincerely happy ending. But here we are. It's been a great ride, and I'm so glad you took me along for it.
9683789
I'm not sure why I didn't pick up on that, given that every other part of that paragraph was sarcastic. I guess we all have our off days. Thanks for the clear-up.
Actually, epilogue-ish question that I just realized wasn't addressed - would Cheval ever reform again? Considering that she deformed (which does not seem like the right word), is she even capable of it? What reformation signifies to ponies doesn't matter anymore, but what it does to changelings might - or at the very least, to her. But then again, it might be precisely the opposite - it didn't change what anyone was capable of, and she no longer feels the need to hide what she is.
This feels like the Harry Potter ending. That's not a compliment.
The story is very technically well written, but the decisions characters make feel strange and there are a lot of things that don't make a lot of sense. I don't know if you planned a lot from the start and the flow of the story bent away from those plans, or if you decided midway that certain scenes and plot points were absolutely going to happen.
9683482
Curiously I mentioned Dresden only because it came up shortly before in a conversation at home, I didn't even know it was such a /pol/ controversy. I do apologize on not raising a less controversial example though, it seems like choosing it instead of a more clear cut case of "the good guys being monsters" made people lock onto it and ignore the rest.
Don't confound raising that point with saying one monster was less monstrous, though. Raising attention to the fact that the devil expy was actually a person with probable brain damage is not about diminishing their crimes but showing how dictators are not unfathomable creatures of evil but people, and like people they are more complex than one dimensional cartoon villains.
On a finishing note, I did have a more confrontational response written, but then I read yours again and realized it was less of a "it's them fighting words" case and more of a "I touched a pet peeve and that colored how you saw what I wrote" one. As I know pretty well how those feel, I did think twice about my tone in this one.
9683870
To be completely fair, I was kind of wondering about this too.
And as much as I did enjoy this story, as much as anyone can enjoy getting emotionally kicked in the balls over and over like the rest of the series
, seeing deleted comment threads is always an extreme turnoff. The criticism is a bit overenthusiastic in places, but it's constructive enough and brings up some cogent points (the kind that fell beyond reasonable suspension of disbelief or fallible characters doing something rash/dumb). There was a lot here that felt a lot more jarring and/or forced than it might have, specifically because it happened in an otherwise good and powerful story.
EDIT: And it got deleted too. Seriously not cool. The comment I was replying to mentioned that no changelings asked Equestrian princesses to petrify them like Cheval, so they wouldn't die of old age before she came back. The way you've presented them, it really does seem like exactly the kind of over-the-top loyalty and/or extreme contingency they'd quickly think of.
Just finished reading the story. And I've got to say, you've done it. You really did give it a truly happy ending. The presented conflict got solved in a way that allows for future happiness, even if not instantaneous. The world heals, step by step, even if it might take a century or two for the wound to close entirely and become just a memory. Flurry was, in the end, actually brave. She finally made the right choice and died fighting to right the wrongs she wrought. Chevall learned that being a Changeling is not wrong, that they were and are a people, and to love herself and her hive. She and Cadence Grieve, but their love for their family is eternal. They love each other like mother and daughter do, and forever it shall still be so.
It is indeed a happy ending, as far as I'm aware. This was an amazing story and well deserving of being one I'll never forget
Sure, it could've gotten a couple extra scenes such as Celestia facing the same reporter and facing her responsibility in the clusterfuck of the war (and giving her little ponies a taste of the bad parts of immortal and immutable rulers), but no story is perfect. Still awesome though.
9683637
How in the flying book horse fucking a spatula can you throw such and epic adventure like thwarting the end of the world through imprisoning the Alicorn of Atomic Power, peer to the Alicorn of War and herald of the apocalypse away in a spoiled comment in the last chapter of this series? That's evil GaP, EVIL I SAY!!! We need that story, we need to see the drama from the point of view of the hero and the mare that ascended in such a way to become The End. We need to know if she's alive in those icy depths or if she's just imprisoned for a thousand years to be again defeated and then purified by Twiggles and her ragtag band of misfits while complaining even her own nephew's leaving elder evils traps for her now, even if he was nice enough to set a "remember the date" for her with a convenient resume of the adventure and powers of said evil, complete with a magically preserved doodle by her sister (and therefore a work of art worthy of being immortalized in her castle's halls) of her rainbow laser-ring said alicorn into friendnship.
Ok, I might've run this a liiiittle too long, but c'mon. Pretty please with sugar on top?
Damn. Mercer all over again.
Awful
9683940
A happy ending as in one where the story's conflict get's resolved and there's genuine space for happiness to flourish, not necessarily instantly. Not a children's book happy ending, but a more realistic one, I'd say.
It could be argued that using foal Flurry's image as a reaction has plenty of philosophical ramifications, though. Still cute as a button.
My, complete? Well, let's see how it ends!
Chapter 16!
Huh. Don't actually have much commentary on this one. Didn't spot any errors, the first part of the chapter was nice, and the second part was nice in a different way, basically.
Still not entirely sure what Flurry's motives and level of plotting vs. failure are, but we may see in the next, and final, chapter.
Speaking of...
Chapter 17!
"Inside was a deed, stamped with an Equestrian seal: “You see, that’s my house.”"
Which, unless Flurry's government never actually formally seized the property, may have led to a possibly landmark court case.
Heh. Wonder if they put Light Step's statue next to the Twilight Sparkle one (I recall being there), or if they switched them and sent the Twilight statue to Ponyville or something.
"of citizens when unnoticed"
"of citizens went unnoticed"?
And there we go. :)
You're welcome! Thank you for... writing the tracks ahead of us on it, or... however this metaphor is supposed to work. :D
(...It occurs to me I'm still not certain about Flurry Heart at the end, particularly with what's been left ambiguous, but I'm also, actually, not sure she was certain what she was really trying to do there either.)
9683637
...And FIMFiction once again didn't tell me about your reply. Eh, well, found it anyway. :)
"Okay! Let's do this thing.
"
:)
"Sometimes things really are just what they seem!"
Aye. Still wonder if there was something provoking it at that particular time, though, like, perhaps she'd been on the cusp of it for a while but was able to avoid going over the edge in the relatively stable environment of the train, and then even the relatively small change and exertion of disembarking was enough of a push.
"Nope, that's a typo. Fixed! Along with many others."
Ah, thanks. :)
"We see that in the canonical changeling hive! Thorax takes good advantage."
Ah, thanks; I may vaguely recall that.
re the spoiler-filled one:
...Huh, really? Wow. :D
Well, thanks. :)
"I was going to write that up as its own side story, but decided not to."
Ah well. Still, you can't write up every interesting incident in the world for us. :)
"It's an in-character belief, no matter how many times it is shown to be wrong.
"
:)
"The story is intended to be in-universe fiction. Aromantic ponies exist (just like aromantic humans exist), but the changeling gatherer caste didn't always have the best understanding of how ponies worked (just like most changelings didn't). It was one changelings perspective on what being aromantic meant, as well as a reflection on the nature of love."
Ah, thanks!
(...And also, because it is a Thing: "one changeling's perspective"? :))
"Thank you!
"
You're welcome. :)
Thank you, again. :)
Ah, and here's another one FIMFiction didn't alert me to... probably something with the chapters they're on, but I still haven't figured out just how that works.
9683649
"Fixed! Along with the others."
Thanks. :)
"PLEASE REMAIN CALM"
:D
"There will be no surprises under his rule."
...Which does, though, particularly given the epilogue, raise questions about how his rule went and what counted as a surprise. Hm, though I suppose there already was a trend towards thawing relations with Equestria and gradual loosening of harsh control, so it continuing might not count. In that case, stability might just have helped smooth out the shocks.
"Okay, wow.
I'm sorry, I need to confirm that is not the case, because damn that is clever. I wish I had done that.
"
Oh, hah, well, sorry, but thanks. :D
...Though now I'm wondering what "that" is there, and whether it's actually Flurry plotting as a whole or just the wording being something deliberate.
(And part of me is also wondering "So how plausible is it that Flurry could be a skilled enough manipulator to fool the author writing her?" :D)
"He believes in order and stability above all.
Maybe the changelings really are bad, or maybe they aren't. But either way, the Empire is committed. The train can't stop just because one pony says so."
Aye, that fits with my leading hypothesis, I think; thanks.
"This is an in-character belief! Even if it is super, super wrong."
:D
"Yup."
"YUP."
:D
Well, I'd write a more extensive comment, but it seems apparent that you don't handle criticism well. However I will point out this:
Why would an Equestrian document be worth crap in the Crystal Empire at this point? If they ever were a part of Equestria they certainly haven't been at least since Flurry took over, and even with Flurry confessing her crimes, the bit with Diamond Path makes it clear that hasn't changed, at least for now. Seriously loved that scene til that last line.
Decent enough ending. Flurry admitting to her crimes is pretty much all anyone could ask for by this point. The decrepit old tyrant was clearly on her way out anyway, so letting that mob eviserate her would have served no purpose. Letting that mob eviserate her guards however, was ever so slightly cathartic.
My biggest gripe about this fic is one of Cheval's own, in that Celestia- and extending that to Luna and Cadence honestly, could and should have actually stepped in decades ago. I understand why Cadence didn't want to, but for Christ's sake, they could have collectively stopped these events before they became the holocaust we're presented with.
Only Twilight did anything remotely useful, and that includes being beaten half to death by her neice, because at least she tried. Any two of them would have stood a better than decent chance at bring Flurry to heel in combat, and all four of them would have most certainly trounced and captured her ass. Well, at least things ended on a hopeful note. Diamond Path is obviously not the powerhouse Flurry was, and it doesn't seem like he's particularly charismatic either. With him holding the reins, things will eventually get better in spite of his best efforts.
Nice work.
So many deleted comments. >>
An end to the series, that makes me sad we didn't get to explore more of this AU such as what's the hecking deal with Celestia. I might put more thought into a comment later, but it is 4am my time and I am internally dying at the moment, so i'mma just lay back now.
Whew boy, the last of The Last Changling..
It's been quite a trip, to say the least.
I've largely ignored the comments on the series, sans perhaps the "this is a happy ending to you?!" Moment at the end of the previous installment.
I personally enjoyed it though, and I thank you for writing it.
Keep on keeping on.👍
I'm not sure I buy the relative 'cleanliness' of the ending, insofar as tensions having dropped between Equestria, the Hive and the Crystal Empire that the borders are open and everyone is free to go around just like that.
Unless I'm missing something, this is because Flurry Heart confessed to her war crimes. But I don't see how Diamond could've lost this much control of the narrative.
Flurry Heart was attacked in Ponyville (unprovoked, as far as this particular encounter goes), and her guards were pretty much slaughtered. Then, after some time in Equestrian/Changeling custody, she's suddenly repentant of her decades-long campaign against the enemies of the Crystal Empire? Sounds like a confession under duress if made in Equestria, or blackmail/brainwashing if she was released and confessed after returning to the Empire.
I don't see any way they would take that lying down. Certainly not to the point where Diamond is shifting blame (and tacitly admitting that the atrocities are real) rather than contesting the legitimacy of Flurry's confession.
And then there's the issue of the slaughtered Crystal guards. It occurred on Equestrian soil, committed by entities that are arguably Equestrian citizens, between nations that are not officially at war. At the very least, I'd expect the Empire to demand extradition of the culprits to face justice in the Empire. Equestria would either have to deny it and piss of the Empire, or renounce their citizenship and say that it was the independent actions of changeling-ponies, which would pretty much confirm all the demonisation of changelings that Flurry Heart had propagated in the eyes of the Crystal Empire.
Really, the only way I can see this panning out as depicted here is if Equestria finally decided to throw its full weight around and tell the Crystal Empire's government to shut up and officially accept Flurry's confession, lest they face the full wrath of the Sun and Moon.
On another note, I'd say that overall I very much enjoyed this series.
I love the characters and world-building concepts, maybe minus the broader politics. They often feel like they don't quite mesh well with the more whimsical aspects of the show (which is implied to still be canon here). I've never really been able to properly reconcile the idea that these canonically soft ponies have been playing on the same board where Warhammer-esque rules apply and not died out by the start of the series.
The discussions concerning writing and world-building were quite stimulating to read, too.
I'd definitely be on board if you decide to continue exploring this world.
9684248
I appreciate the sentiment, but maybe let's keep the comments relevant to this story, eh?
That ended .. much better than I thought it would - an exhausted, paranoid Crystal Empire could quite easily have tried once more for Conquest-by-arms, leaving the rest of the world to bury their differences as the only solution.
An incredible world, and incredible series of stories to build it. Love them all.
I stayed up until the morning finishing this, and I'm still at a loss. I don't know what to feel, I don't know how to feel. Is it about love? Halfway through I wondered, it felt as though the irrational nature of love was perhaps the whole point of these stories. And yet with this ending, I don't feel that. I feel an absence of love. An absence of most things, really. Something kept driving me into the next chapter while I was reading, and suddenly that rush is gone. Maybe I was so drawn in that I forgot about the story? Is this emptiness not from the story or the characters, but rather from myself and the lack of words to keep reading?
Something about these stories were compelling. It's a testament to the characters, or the writing, or something at least that I still don't even know if I liked the stories. I have no idea how I'll feel once my thoughts have settled.
Well. You were right. That was a happy ending. Not one without problems—the world may be able to heal from Flurry's actions, but the wounds are still there and the scars will take time to fade—but a genuinely positive conclusion to this strange saga.
I do have to agree that Celestia and Luna are just kind of... there. They feel more like distant, uncaring gods in their city on the side of Olympus than rulers engaged in the roiling political landscape. (Of course, between how alicorns work in this setting and Celestia's views on the alicorn mandate to rule, that may well be how they see themselves. It'd certainly explain the "delegate crises to Twilight" approach.) And, of course, the Nureinberg Trials will continue to unearth the Empire's atrocities, though what befalls it afterwards is outside the scope of this discussion.
Even so, this tied a lot of loose ends together quite well. Seeing Light Step's legacy was a very nice touch. It might have been nice to see Cheval's first clutch hatch "on camera," but that may have been gilding the lily.
And I would like to know what happens to Princess Unstable Nucleus.
This was one heck of a ride. There were some bumpy parts on the road, but I'm satisfied with the final destination. Thank you for it.
9684342
It's actually sort of funny. They weren't caring to help the Crystal empire against the Changelings.. Which would've solved this entire problem earlier, but against someone who isn't an Alicorn or Queen they finally throw their weight around?
I can't tell if they're cowards or just disdainful of non ascended types. It basically tries to absolve them of any problems of basically doing nothing and helping cause the problem for so long and then finally picking up the pace at the very end to try and make themselves seem like the good guys.
9684327
I don't agree with all your rage I've seen over the course of this series - I particularly disagree with the bit about fanfiction writers having an "obligation" to adhere to as much of canon/core characterization as possible - and in the end I still liked this series a lot more than you did.....
...But otherwise this is a very, very well-done critique that adequately and accurately sums up a fair number of issues I too had with the series as a whole. For all your blustering and nitpicking, you really do have a lot of legitimate gripes and I'm glad someone put words to the vague sense of uneasiness I had throughout the latter parts.
...
Still, I did enjoy the story in the end. In spite of its flaws. Thanks for writing it, Jaxie.
....Sooooo, any chance your next project is getting back to "The Lies we Tell to Children?"